The Alibaba IPO is coming this week. It's expected to raise as much as $24.3 billion, making it the largest initial public offering since Facebook Inc.'s (Nasdaq: FB) $16 billion IPO in 2012.
Because of their similar sizes, and the fact that they're only separated by two years, the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) IPO and Facebook IPO have been repeatedly compared to one another.
But these two massive IPOs are very different. Here's why...